Good evening. I'm terry moran reporting tonight from the wreckage of the town of seaside heights, new jersey. Where the destruction is just biblical. There is water everywhere. This town was nearly swept away into the sea but more important tonight, there are still dozens, maybe scores of people behind me still stranded in the dark, in the cold, still awaiting rescue in the wake of a storm that ripped homes from their foundations, reduced piers to rubble. We saw this up and down the jersey shore today. This community is just one of the hardest hit along the ravaged shoreline of this state. A state where tonight, 65% of the people are without power in the dark and tonight, here where a new danger encroaches. It was a surreal journey at dusk we canoed through the flooded streets of seaside heights, a summer town overwhelmed and eerily silent after the storm wrecked it. This is incredible. Here and there, those who stayed, they are refugees now. Did you ride the storm out? We stayed here. Reporter: Thomas stayed dry in the second floor home but now, they are stranded, cold and in dire straits. I've been through four hurricanes, never seen anything like this. Reporter: And it is getting dangerous here, gas lines are broken. There is fuel from boats and cars sitting in the floodwaters across the town. They said if they couldn't shut off the gas everyone has to leave because whole town could blow. Reporter: The boardwalk as the heart of the resort, strange place now. Amusement park is in ruins. The rides that gave generations of kids so many thrills lie crumpled and broken in the slufr. There is little left. This is sandy's legacy, so many communities will never be the same after this terrible storm struck monday. It made laund near margate, new jersey, just before 8:00 and as sandy moved inland the bulk of the wrath felt in the upper right quadrant of the path, leaving a trail of misery stretching north. It devastated atlantic city and that famous jersey shore, beach towns and barrier islands all the way up to new york. The island of manhattan inundated as the hudson and east rivers flooded. Places like little ferry, new jersey, utterly devastated. Rescue teams spent all day fishing people out of their submerged homes. Among those picked up, maryan, now wearing her brother's pajamas, all of her clothes lost in the storm. We tried to evacuate, and the water was up to here on us and we lost everything. We're alive, we are together and we have our cat. Reporter: They are shuttle into a sheriff's van. I nev thought I'd be in the back of one of these. Reporter: No idea where they are even going. A wale of water this high came rushing over the stairwell. Reporter: Others, like the richardson family, chose to stay behind despite their living room and kitchen in three feet of water. Nothing to do now but just clean up. That's it. Reporter: Throughout the northeast, 8.2 million customers without power. 65% of new jersey in the dark. New jersey's governor chris christie, phone nor his brashness seemed himself moved by what he saw. As a kid who was a boy raised in the state, who spent a lot of time over my life at the jersey shore, no question in my mind we'll rebu it. Reporter: So many weird sights here. My colleague ginger zee got a firsthand look at the damage in atlantic city. This car is completely covered in sand up to the wheel well. This was at the bottom of the ocean before the storm. Reporter: In cape may this morning the very southern tip of the shore, no major damage, but a landscape transformed. This is an eight-foot street sign that is now waist-high. In berkeley, another town in ruin, the scene was equally tragically, bizarre. As we made our way north along the shore, we got a sense of how vast this recovery must be. Will be. Even here in seaside heights, a drowned town now, haunted by its stranded and frightened residents, and the ghosts of so many summers past.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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